[Winkler, Michael]. Epistola ad omnes Judaeos qui dispersi sunt sub coelo per universam terram. (Sefer al-kol-ha-Yehudim asher nefatsu mi-tahat ha-shamayim `al-kol-ha-arets).

Vienna, Joseph Hraschanzky, 1800.

8vo. 54, (1) ff., final blank. Contemporary grey boards with giltstamped spine label.

 950.00

Only edition; very rare: an open letter to "all Jews scattered under the heavens and over the face of the earth", discussing matters of religion. Anonymously written by the Christian scholar Michael (Mihály) Winkler (1729-1810), a parish priest in Gödre, Szakadát and later Bonyhád (Hungary). Printed throughout in vowelized Hebrew and Yiddish in two columns, with the original Latin text on facing pages. Replete with Biblical quotations, the book was intended to lure Jews to the Christian faith. It does not appear to have had any impact at all and must have been printed in a very limited press-run. Not in the Jewish National Library in Jerusalem; omitted by all the standard bibliographies and cited only by Buchberger's study of the Hraschazky publishing house, which specialized in Hebrew printing and had produced a complete edition of the Talmud a few years previously.

Binding rubbed and slightly stained; interior clean and well preserved. Only five copies worldwide listed by OCLC.

References

Buchberger 146. OCLC 49256340. Imre Solymár, "Értékek orzoje, szegények istápolója - Winkler Mihály", in: Honismeret 17/3 (1989), 56-60, here at p. 57f. with note 12. Not in Vinograd, Fürst etc.

Stock Code: BN#49440 Tags: , , ,